This does not imply that any personnal, commercial or exotic stuff that is
based on the Linux kernel sources is supported by the Linux community and
contributors. Speaking about the support for users problems, the Linux
project has rules. The same way a vendor does only support stuff you
bought him, the Linux project only supports the software material it has
made available to you. Result is that any problem reported to the linux
lists should refer (or also refer) to official kernels as provided by
Linus Torvalds, or to further versions of components intended to be
incorporated later into the Linux kernel mainstream.
People who experience problem using a Linux distribution that donnot use
the exact official kernel sources should either:
1) Stick with the modified kernel sources but report the problem to the
corresponding list or newsgroup for this distribution.
2) Or stick with the modified kernel sources but report the problem to
the hardware manufactor when the problem seems to be caused by a driver
or the hardware. For example, LSILOGIC officially supports some Linux
distributions (Notably RedHat) for problems that seem related to
their PCI-SCSI controllers family (SYM53C8XX).
3) Or reproduce the problem using official Linux kernel sources and then
report the problem to a linux list or/and the maintainer of components
that seem to be involved.
A customer that paid for a product also paid for support. When such a
support is provided by an individual or a company that is not involved on
the commercial deal of this product, an extremally ridiculous situation is
occuring.
Speaking for me, I am a free individual contributor that never got a single
cent for my contributions to Linux and that donnot want, at least for now,
to earn anything from Linux. By the way, I have no problem earning
my living at the moment.
It is a great pleasure for me to contribute to the Linux project, but _only_
to the Linux project. For that reasons, I demand to people that experience
problems using the ncr53c8xx/sym53c8xx drivers under Linux to stop sending
problem reports that refer to RedHat distributions, but to qualified the
problem using official Pengouin distributions prior to reporting the
problem to the Linux lists or directly to me.
It would be great that Linux distributors be careful about not mixing
free oranges and commercial apples by making aware their customers about
the _actual_ differences.
Obviously, my posting does not address Linux users that, since years or
on recent decision, help for testing and debugging the Linux kernel and
new driver versions. Everyone is welcome for helping Linux.
Thanks to people that took time reading by bad english.
Gérard.
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